


The Book of Annie Laurie

by Dragonbat



Category: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
Genre: Family, Gen, Great Depression, Meta, Misses Clause Challenge, Nostalgia, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:01:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21543442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonbat/pseuds/Dragonbat
Summary: When Francie said goodbye to her old neighborhood, she never thought she'd be back, but she was wrong. Sometimes, you need to see your past to find your future.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 30
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	The Book of Annie Laurie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starmagnitudesix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starmagnitudesix/gifts).



> Thanks to Kathy and Debbie for the beta!
> 
> Disclaimer: _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_ was written by Betty Smith (Harper, 1943). I do not own the novel or any of the characters depicted therein, and I am receiving no financial remuneration for this work of fanfiction.
> 
> Written for Starmagnitudesix as part of Yuletide 2019
> 
> Thanks to FullofOwls for tips and pointers on Depression-era Brooklyn

**The Book of Annie Laurie**

Uneasy was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the late spring of 1934. Somber had never felt appropriate before to Francie, but now, as she traversed streets she hadn’t walked in over a decade and a half, she felt as though all the light and laughter that had somehow lent a glossy veneer to a childhood spent in the tenements had been wiped away, revealing the grime and poverty that she’d seldom recognized while growing up here.

 _Was it this bad all along, and I just didn’t notice_ , Francie pondered. _Or have things gotten worse?_

She knew that she shouldn’t have come back to the old neighborhood. Years ago, she’d told herself she never would. Not because she was embarrassed about where she’d grown up, but because she wasn’t and never wanted to be. She’d been afraid that once she went off to college, she’d start to look down on her roots. That homey sights and smells would seem tired and shabby in comparison. That she would become another tenement child who grew up and left, trying to scrub away every vestige of their past as something shameful — not to be mentioned, nor even thought of.

 _Something sordid_ , Miss Garnder would have said, and Francie felt her face grow hot. She’d vowed that she would never betray her upbringing so cruelly. And perhaps all of this had been at the back of her mind on that long-ago Saturday, just a day before she’d climbed aboard the train to Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan. She’d wanted her Brooklyn to retain its shine and sparkle and in her memories, it always would.

But today’s reality bore little resemblance to the warm, comforting recollections of glory days past. Francie had known, of course, that the Great Depression was currently engulfing the entire world and wouldn’t have just skipped over Brooklyn.

 _I guess I always thought Brooklyn would simply shoulder through hard times like it always did_ , she thought, wincing as she encountered another bread line. Tired people waited for blocks for the bread and soup that would be dispensed to those unable to find work to buy their own.

 _Mama would have rather died than stand in one of these_. She pressed her lips together firmly, as she felt moisture well up in her eyes. _She_ would rather have died, but she hadn’t had a word of condemnation when she’d learned that Aunt Evy’s son Paul Jones had done precisely that. According to Neeley, Mama had just shrugged her shoulders, sighed, and said, “Well, he has to eat and he has to feed his family and if he can only do one on what he’s earning right now, I guess he’s made the right choice.”

Grandma Rommely had been like that, too. She’d had her standards and her stringencies, but she’d never blamed anyone else for not measuring up to them. Mama had gotten more like her as she’d gotten older. _Besides,_ Francie reflected with barely a hint of the old bitterness, _she always was harder on Neeley and me than Aunt Evvy was on her three kids. I wonder how strict she is with Laurie._

There were new faces greeting her now, as she passed through neighborhoods that seemed at once unchanged and unrecognizable. Faces that belonged to people with darker skin, with voices that spoke in slow, rolling English straight out of _Cabin in the Cotton_ , or faces a few shades lighter, who spoke in quick bursts of Spanish that sounded so like, and yet so unlike, the Italian that she’d heard on the Williamsburg streets when she was a girl.

Well, Brooklyn had always been a melting pot; it didn’t matter what metals you started with. Still, there was no denying that things were different now. It wasn’t a matter of accents or skin color. There was something else. _Maybe,_ Francie thought, _it was that before, once you made good and got out of the tenements, you were gone for good. Now, people are coming back to the old places, because they can’t afford to live anywhere else. Before, even when you thought you might have to take charity, you found a way not to. You ate crackers and tomato catsup for three days until you got paid, or you took in a boarder, or you got piece work from the factories. And if things were especially bad, you knew that your parents or your siblings would never turn you out of doors._

_But now, some people can’t even pay for crackers and catsup. And boarders don’t have money for rent; that’s why the Hoovervilles are springing up everywhere. And the factories—those that haven’t had to close because all their money was tied up in the banks or the stock markets—have enough people doing piece work. And your parents and siblings are in the same boat you are._

Well. At least hers weren’t. Dad’s work as a PWA liaison with the Parks Department meant that Mama could relax a bit on that score. Francie smiled then. As if Mama could ever relax! No, Mama had joined the Volunteers of America and spent three days a week cooking in one of the ‘penny restaurants’ that had sprung up throughout the city and everywhere else. And every Monday evening, according to Laurie’s letters, Mama took the trolley to the Jackson Street settlement house to teach other women how to ‘economize’.

 _It’s just a fancy name for stretching pennies,_ Mama had written last month. _And if there’s one thing I know how to do,_ _it’s stretch a penny till it shrieks. And the more people I can teach to do the same, the more people can find ways to eat._

Francie was so proud of Mama for doing her part to help in these difficult times. She hadn’t forgotten the tenements either.

 _That’s how I need to be,_ Francie told herself. _I need to remember where I came from, not because everything was wonderful then, but because it wasn’t. We learned how to get by because we had no choice. The trouble is that now there are a whole lot of other people who used to have so much more. And now they don’t, and they don’t know how to stretch a penny till it shrieks. They get hungrier on crackers and catsup and they don’t know what to do with stale bread besides crumble it for the birds on the Coney Island boardwalk._ She shook her head slightly. _They used to never worry about where their next nickel was coming from and now they sell eggs and apples and don’t dare waste a thing, not even a cup of black coffee._

She looked about at the street once more and thought she saw something glint out the corner of her eye. _Maybe everything was just gilt veneer and tin plate back then, but now, I wonder if all that… poverty didn’t give us more grit than Rear Admiral Cooper and Smiling Mickey Welch put together._

* * *

She spent the next couple of hours or so walking through Williamsburg, into Boerum Hill, and on to Red Hook. She’d only seen Laurie’s high school once before, but she spied it from a distance: an imposing red-brick affair that looked older than it really was. She’d timed it right; she could hear the dismissal bell from half a block away. Moments later, a crowd of young people spilled out, joking and laughing. Francie could see, though, that there were fewer students leaving than one might have expected of a school that size.

 _I guess a lot of kids had to drop out and find work,_ Francie thought. _The bosses don’t have to pay kids as much as grownups to do the same jobs. And kids haven’t settled down to raise families yet, either. They can hop a train and go somewhere else to find work and maybe make enough to send money back home._ She thought a silent prayer of thanks that Ben’s law practice was doing well. No, not everyone could afford to pay a lawyer in these times, but enough could that they were managing.

And Ben had still found time to go over the contract that Monogram Pictures had sent her and confirm that what they were offering was more than fair for the script they wanted to purchase. True, it would mean that she’d have no right to protest any changes they might make to it after they bought it, but meanwhile, having a bit of extra money put aside was always helpful. She wouldn’t put it in the bank, though, she resolved. She didn’t trust banks anymore; not since the crash. It didn’t matter how much safer the government was trying to make them; she’d keep her money in a locked strongbox concealed in a hatbox in her closet, thank you very much. _I think I will sign the contract when I get home to Rochester, if only so that I’ll be able to say that a movie studio bought something I wrote. It’s not about the money, really. It’s about having someone all the way out in Hollywood agree that MFK Nolan is a screenwriter. Or at least,_ she amended, _a playwright whose work they think they can adapt for the screen. But of course, the money’s nice, too._

“Francie?”

Francie blinked. She’d been so lost in her musings that she hadn’t noticed her sister’s approach. “Hi, Laurie.”

Laurie grinned. “Gosh, I thought it was you, but I wasn’t sure until I got closer! I’m sorry I was out when you came home yesterday, and then you were asleep when I got in.” She hesitated for a moment before flinging her arms about her big sister. “Letters aren’t anywhere near as good as seeing you for real,” she mumbled into Francie’s shoulder. “How long has it been anyway?”

Francie felt a pang of guilt. “More than five years, I guess,” she murmured. It wasn’t right. Family should stick together. But the bond she’d always shared with Neeley—a bond born of closeness in age, and Saturday trips to the junkman, of standing straight beneath a hurtled evergreen and mutual distaste for gathering horse pats to fertilize dying houseplants—she’d never had that with the sister almost fourteen and a half years her junior. Laurie hadn’t grown up in the tenements. Laurie had never loved or known any papa but Dad. Laurie never—

And Francie had been off to college and the world beyond well before Laurie’s third birthday. She’d been back for visits, of course. She’d written numerous letters and sent her love. But she and her sister were still strangers to one another. Friendly strangers, to be sure, but there was a distance between them that Francie didn’t know how to breach. Still, she smiled brightly. “C’mon. Let’s get some ice cream. I’ll treat.”

* * *

“Wow!” Laurie exclaimed. “You sold a script? Are you moving to Hollywood? Are you going to meet any movie stars? Could you get me Edward Everett Horton’s autograph?”

Francie laughed. “Slow down! No, Ben’s practice is in Rochester and he’d never pack up and move to California. Besides, I can write anywhere. No, some scout from the studio just happened to catch my show when he was on vacation and he liked it enough to tell his higher ups about it. One thing led to another and…”

“And you’re going to be famous!” Laurie squealed.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Francie admitted. “Do you know who wrote _Top Hat_?”

“Wrote it?” Laurie frowned for a moment, thinking. “I know Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were in it. Wait!” she beamed. “Irving Berlin!”

Francie shook her head. “He wrote the songs, not the screenplay.”

“Oh,” Laurie frowned. “Who, then?”

“I don’t know myself,” Francie admitted. “The writer doesn’t always get screen credit and when they do, most people don’t remember it anyway.” She sighed. “I’m not going to be famous. But I am going to be able to say that one of my scripts was made into a movie. That’s something anyway.”

“So, what’s it about?”

Francie looked down. “Oh, nothing really,” she said. “Just a couple of kids growing up without much who manage to make do. Like a lot of people are right now.” She shrugged. “I guess it’s a message that it doesn’t hurt to get out.”

“Could I read it?” The question came out at a rush, as though she was afraid she’d lose her nerve if she waited to ask it.

Francie blinked. “Do you really want to?”

“Yes!” Laurie exclaimed. “The way things are, it,” she shakes her head, “it might be the only window I’ll have into knowing what it was like growing up like, well,” she blushes, “my English teacher says you should ‘write what you know’. I guess I thought that’s what you did. Did you? Or was it just made up?”

Francie hesitated. “A little of both, I guess. I put a lot of Williamsburg into it, but some things I left out or changed a little. Some of the people I had in mind when I wrote it, well, they’re still around. Or I thought they might be. And I didn’t want to put them up on stage under the spotlight where everyone in the neighborhood would know who they were. So, I changed a few names, cut a few things, sort of combined a bunch of people into one character; that kind of thing.” She reaches into her bag and pulls out the script. She passes it across the table. “I was… well, I was going to go by my old school and show it to my eighth grade English teacher. But I think I’d like you to read it instead.”

“Are you sure? I mean, I’m sure she’d be thrilled for you if she knew; I understand if you’d rather—”

“No!” Francie interrupted her. “Actually,” she took a breath. “She wouldn’t like it at all. I just wanted to rub her nose in it.”

“Francie?”

She’d never told this to anyone. Not to Mama, not even to Neeley. But maybe it was time. And maybe it was easier to tell someone who’d never known Papa. Someone who’d never stumbled over her diary and made her scratch out every place she’d wrote ‘drunk’ and made her write ‘sick’ in its place. Someone for whom Papa’s death wouldn’t still sting, because she’d never known him. “I don’t know what Mama’s told you about Papa. Not Dad,” she added quickly. “Papa.”

Laurie looked down at her ice cream, which had already begun to melt noticeably. She quickly took a few spoonfuls; ice cream wasn’t black coffee and ought not be wasted. Not at ten cents for a sundae. “Very little,” she said finally. “I know he died of pneumonia before I was born, and that times were harder for you then. Not much else, though,” she shook her head. “She didn’t really seem like she wanted to talk about him and I guess I stopped asking.”

“Sounds like Mama,” Francie nodded. “I never could get much out of her that she didn’t want to say either. And, I guess, maybe, she didn’t think you needed to know much more than that. And maybe you don’t. But if you want to…?”

It was as though her sister’s wide-eyed nod released a floodgate. Francie started with the easy bits: Papa had been young and handsome and very much in love with Mama. Francie had always felt that she was his favorite and Neeley, Mama’s. “He called me Prima Donna,” Francie remembered. “And I used to love going to down to the dry goods store to buy him a dicky and a paper collar; it made me feel special. I know it probably doesn’t sound like much to you,” she added.

“It doesn’t matter,” Laurie smiled and Francie was glad that her sister was honest enough not to pretend she’d guessed wrong. “I know you wouldn’t be telling me this if it wasn’t important to _you_.” So, Francie smiled back and went on with her stories. And somewhere in the telling, she got to the part that she’d been dreading, but that she knew she’d have to relate if she was going to explain about Miss Garnder.

“He had a problem with drinking,” Francie said finally, sadly, but without embarrassment. Papa’s drinking might have been a shameful thing for Mama, but for her, it had just been a part of Papa, together with his love for her and his Irish songs and his rambling talks that always made her feel so grown up. “It got bad enough that he couldn’t work anymore. And then he went out one night, trying to find some place that might hire him, and he didn’t come back. It was cold and wet, and he got sick and collapsed. He died in the hospital. Of pneumonia,” she added firmly, wanting Laurie to know that Mama hadn’t lied about that part. She’d just left off the alcoholism. “And after that, I… well, I guess I tried to handle things by wanting to make people to see him the way I did. I heard the talk,” she rolled her eyes. “Of course I heard the talk. I knew people said he was a drunk and no good and other things and maybe sometimes he was all that. But he was still a good man,” she said plaintively. “And I tried to show it by writing stories about him. Not made-up stories. True ones. About the kind of man Papa was; the good and the bad. Like I’m telling you. Only my teacher didn’t like them. She started marking them down, saying they weren’t fit subjects for writing.” Her lip curled bitterly. “She told me that writers needed to strive for beauty always. And when I asked her what she meant, she quoted Keats to me. ‘Beauty is truth and truth beauty.’ We had different ideas of ‘truth,’ I guess. I don’t really expect you to understand,” she added.

 _"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know,"_ Laurie quoted at once. “Ode to a Grecian Urn.” And then she frowned. “But the way my teacher taught it, it was like Keats was saying, ‘You’re just an urn; you think beauty and truth are the same and for you, it is. But you’re just an urn; what do you know?’”

Startled, Francie nodded. “I never learned it that way,” she managed. But it didn’t surprise her to hear that Miss Garnder might have missed the meaning of what Keats could have actually been saying. “Anyway, I guess I wanted to go by my old school and show Miss Garnder that people today were interested in _my_ truths. And then I had this scene all imagined where she’d get down on her knees and tell me she’d been wrong and apologize and…” She pressed her lips together and thrust the script toward her sister once more.

“The truth is,” Francie continued, “I don’t need to impress her. I never did. And I think I realized that today when I went through the old neighborhood. I didn’t go into my school. I don’t know if she’s still teaching, or if she even remembers me.” She shook her head slightly. “I guess I didn’t want to find out. Anyway, if you want to read it, you can. Let me know what you think of it later; I’m going on over to Neeley; he asked me to mind the baby until Millie comes home, but tell Mama and Dad I’ll be home for supper.”

Laurie nodded. “Mama’s got me volunteering at a soup kitchen; I’ll head over there in a bit. I’m just making the soup, not serving it, so I should be home even a little while before you. Give Neeley my love and don’t take it too hard if Frankie screams when you meet him; he always does that with someone new till he gets to know them.” She grinned. “Even if it’s someone he’s named after.”

* * *

Neeley was glad to see her. He had an hour to spare before he had to run to rehearsal; ever since the brokerage firm he was working at went bust, he’d been spending more time at the piano. Fifteen years ago, he’d passed many a fine evening playing ragtime and jazz for free sodas and the occasional dollar. Now he was part of a swing band and, if the pay wasn’t aces, between it and Millie’s salary, they were better than getting by. And because he worked evenings, he was able to look after the baby during the day, while Millie took the subway to Manhattan. She was a nurse at Columbus hospital over on East 34th Street.

“It’s just realistic,” Neeley explained without a trace of embarrassment. “Nobody knows from one day to the next if their job’s still going to be there; I learned that the hard way after the crash. The band is finally starting to take off; we’ve worked almost every day in the week these last three months. But even if we had to fold tomorrow, at least Millie’s working means we still get by. Meanwhile, we even have a little put away.”

Francie nodded, knowing how important that was and glad that nobody in her family was in danger of having to live in one of the Hoovervilles. She told him about selling the script and he let out a low whistle.

“Murder!” he exclaimed and it took Francie a moment to remember the new slang. ‘Murder’ just meant ‘keen’ or ‘wow’, but it gave her an unpleasant chill to hear it. Words meant something and you couldn’t just go around changing the meaning because you felt like it. Apparently, you could, though.

“So when’s the movie?” Before Francie could reply, he continued breathlessly, “Say, movies have music, don’t they? You think you could put in a good word for the band with the studio and get us an audition?”

“I-I don’t know,” Francie admitted. “I’m so new at this; I barely understand how any of this works. Ben’s helping me puzzle it out, though.” She smiled apologetically. “I don’t know a soul in Hollywood except the man who liked my play, and I have no idea if he has anything to do with music, but I can try to find out for you.”

“Swell. So, how did things go with Laurie?”

She filled him in briefly on the high points of their conversation. Neeley listened, saying nothing until she was done. When she was, though, he frowned. “You know,” he said slowly, “maybe you ought to write about all of it.”

“All of what?”

“Everything,” Neeley exclaimed, spreading his hands wide for emphasis. “Francie, you know how much this city has changed in just fifteen years. You and me and Mama, we still remember what it was like back then. Laurie’s seen some of it, but not everything we did. And,” he gestured to the cradle in the corner, “Frankie won’t know the old Brooklyn at all. But you can show them,” he went on. “You can make it all real.”

Francie shook her head dubiously. “I don’t know. Just because it’s close to me doesn’t mean it’ll mean a thing to anyone else.”

“It will,” Neeley said confidently. “Look, there’s some lady out in Missouri now writing about what it was like growing up in some forest in Wisconsin about sixty years ago. Millie borrowed a copy from the Settlement library when she went to drive Mama home the other night and I looked through it. It’s pages and pages about how to melt down lead to make bullets or-or color butter with grated carrot or play ball with a pig bladder. And kids are reading that stuff and eating it up; at least, Millie says that’s what she hears. Don’t you think some of those same kids might want to know what it was like growing up in Williamsburg? It’s… it’s history, Francie. Only not boring,” he added with a grin.

She started to shake her head again, but then she remembered how Laurie had hung on her words earlier. And she’d just about sold a screenplay to a Hollywood studio for a story that was set in the Brooklyn she remembered from her youth. So, maybe people would be interested in reading about it. And even if Neeley was wrong about that, Francie thought that maybe Laurie would be interested. Laurie had never known Papa. But maybe through Francie’s stories, she could.

“I’ll think about it,” she promised her brother. “Okay?”

Neeley stuck out his hand and Francie took it. “Deal.”

* * *

Was Neeley right? Francie wondered. This was the kind of thing she wished she could talk to Mama about, but Mama had never been easy to talk to, not about things like this. Not about Papa. Still, after supper, after Laurie had gone into her room to study, Francie found herself going into the kitchen where Mama was washing dishes.

“I’ll dry,” she offered.

Mama nodded. “That will help,” she replied, taking the dish towel off her shoulder and handing it to Francie. “Not that there’s much to do.”

“I was talking to Neeley earlier,” Francie said, knowing that Mama would be annoyed if she beat about the bush instead of saying what was on her mind. Still, getting the words out wasn’t easy. Mama’s face took on that same stern-sad look it always did when the subject of conversation turned to Papa. Still, Mama listened without interrupting. And when Francie was done, she sighed.

“Well,” Mama said, “I won’t deny I’m of two minds about it.” She rinsed the soapy water off of a soup plate and handed the dish to Francie. “Part of me says to leave the past where it is and look forward. There’s a lot of pain and sadness left over from those years and it’s best to move on from them. But,” she continued, “part of me says that there was love and laughter and you can’t have the good times without the bad. And it’s not a terrible thing for Laurie to know where she comes from.” And then she took another breath. “Nor you, for that matter. I can’t say if this is anything you’ll want to put in this story of yours, but maybe it’s something you ought to hear and decide…”

* * *

Over an hour later, Francie sat down at the writing desk in the spare bedroom that had once been Neeley’s room. She was still thinking about everything Mama had told her. She’d never known how her parents had met. Imagine Mama actually stealing Papa from another woman! She didn’t know if she could actually put that down. If she was writing for children, she thought a publisher might think it a bit too racy. But maybe…

 _Maybe I’ll write it anyway and if they tell me I have to take it out, I won’t fight it. At least, once it’s written, I can give it to Laurie_. _I’ll have to change all the names, of course, just like I did for the play. Otherwise, it’ll start too much gossip about things long forgotten. Why Aunt Sissy’s downright respectable nowadays and has been for years._ Francie smiled at that and thought for a moment. _I think I’ll call the main character ‘Betty’. At least, for now; I can always fix it later if I change my mind._ Tomorrow, she’d visit Aunt Sissy and maybe Aunt Evy. They almost certainly had their own stories to tell about those days and they might be worth getting down. And when she got back to Rochester, she was going to reread those stories she wrote about Papa so long ago. They probably wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as she remembered thinking they were when she wrote them, but they’d still be true and real and—despite what Miss Garnder might think—beautiful.

Yes, Francie knew she’d have to do quite a bit of research before she was done. But tonight, she could at least make a start. She could begin with her own story and fill in the rest later. A smile came to her face. She’d start by describing a typical Saturday when she was eleven and Neeley ten. But first, she realized, just like in her play, she’d have to set the scene.

She picked up her pen and, on the blank sheet of paper before her, she began.

_Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the summer of 1912…_

**Author's Note:**

> Between World War I and the 1930s, many African Americans and Puerto Ricans moved into Brooklyn in search of more opportunity. 
> 
> Rear Admiral George H. Cooper (1821–1891) was a career navy officer. Born in New York, he fought in both the Mexican War (1846–7) and American Civil War (1861–5). He served as Commander-In-Chief of the North Atlantic Squadron (1882–4), eventually making his home in Brooklyn.
> 
> Michael Francis “Smiling Mickey” Welch (1859–1941) was a major league baseball pitcher. Born in Brooklyn, he made his major league debut with the Troy Trojans in 1880. He went on to pitch for the New York Gothams (later the Giants).
> 
> During the Great Depression, women often had a better chance of employment than men. although most jobs were in traditionally “female” spaces, such as teaching, nursing, and secretarial/clerical work.
> 
> The settlement movement thrived in poor urban areas in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Settlement houses staffed by middle-income volunteers provided free education, health care, and recreation and culture to low-income families, both native-born and immigrant.
> 
> Columbus Hospital became Cabrini Hospital in 1973 after merging with Italian Hospital. It closed its doors in 2008. 
> 
> The ‘lady in Missouri’ Neeley refers to is, of course, Laura Ingalls Wilder, whose novel _Little House in the Big Woods_ was published in 1932.


End file.
